Society

Superdud? From The Game To The Commercials, Superbowl XLVIII Falls Flat

imagesDenver_Broncos2I may be in the minority and I do not want to take away from the brilliant performance of the Seattle Seahawks, but I thought last night’s game was one of the least interesting in my lifetime, including one of the worst crops of commercials. The game itself was so dominated by the Seahawks it was only fascinating in the same sense as a really bad car crash at Nascar and even then you almost felt like averting your eyes. I appears that the transit nightmare afterwards was more of a blood sport. Indeed, my family did not think the halftime show was that creative (though I am not a Bruno Mars fan) and thought the commercials were downright boring. That later point has my fascinated. There seemed a real decline in the number of funny commercials this year and many commercials were rehashes or conventional pitches. If there are bad years for wine and Superbowls, 2014 is likely to go down as a particularly bad vintage.

One controversial commercial aired after all. Scarlett Johansson was on with her pitch for SodaStream after the company dropped its last line — “Sorry, Coke and Pepsi.” Of course, that was not the controversy that generated the pre-game buzz. The company’s factory is located in the West Bank and was denounced by human rights activists as a violation of international law. After the international charity Oxfam criticized her involvement (while being one of its ambassadors), Johansson decided to quit the charity and keep the company. I am still interested in the business decision by the company to push for the Superbowl attention, which has made it the primary focus of the boycott movement.

We love watching the commercials each year and the whole family was struck on how boring most of the pieces were this year. Companies went heavy with celebrities over creativity. Some were moderately funny but there was not the usual collection of water cooler favorites.

There was the usual formula pieces with cute kids and puppies that ranked near the top this year with The Budweiser doing a Clydesdale spot of an unrequited love between one of its horses and a yellow Lab puppy while Doritos had a cute little girl riding a Mastiff.

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5192E9Pnfo

I thought the photography work on the Bob Dylan commercial was impressive as long as you really want Bob Dylan building your car:

Then there was the Scientology commercial, which led me to wonder how many people looked up from their chips and beers and said, “Hey, I would to give Scientology a try.”

Did you have the same reaction as my family that the commercials (like the game) was a bit of a let down this year?

47 thoughts on “Superdud? From The Game To The Commercials, Superbowl XLVIII Falls Flat”

  1. Watching the Coke ad, I imagined the exploding heads of the KKK, Neo-NZIS, the Aryan Brotherhood, other hate groups, my brother, some cousins, and several colleagues, much like martians and yodeling, and easily predicted the ensing firestorm of reactionary conservative condemnation of this expression of American ideals.

    Just like their criticisms of Coke’s hippy Super Bowl ad —

  2. nick:

    Seattle gets a bad rap because of a few jerks. Russell and Michael Robinosn are both class acts. I’m also a big Pete Carroll fan after what he did for one of our Richmond kids while at USC. I never coached the kid in rec ball but he was on my oldest son’s team in high school.

    We had a high school all-region running back who got no offers because his coach decided he was, at best,a D3 level player. The family needed the scholarship. A good friend of mine who runs a recruiting site talked about it and he made a call to Pete Carroll after the deadline to sign letters of intent and asked if he needed a running back. Carroll’s son called back that day and said send the films. Two days later, Carroll was on the phone asking how he could help this kid and wondering why there were no scholarship offers. Though he was out of scholarship money he personally went to the admissions committee and, after showing the group some films made by kid, got him admitted on 80% scholarship.

    On the first day of summer practice, he put the kid in against the no. 2 defense in the country and he broke up the middle for 80 yards. He even made the travel team and came to Virginia to play UVA.

    Though the kid gave up football to continue in his film making studies, Pete never said one negative word about giving the kid a shot.

    That’s a coach and a man.

  3. Will we ever get tired of pairing crap like coke with what it means to be American? This is at the root of our collective problem. What it means to be American is sugar and gassy water. We need to think about this a little.

  4. Mespo, I noticed how all the Seattle players made it a point to use “we” a lot in their interviews and the MVP used “humble” in the interviews I saw. The message was quite clear to Richard Sherman.

  5. nick:

    ” I have only missed one Super Bowl, the 1987 one, as I travelled to Medellin to adopt our son.”

    ********************

    Good on you, nick.

  6. Mespo, I noticed how all the Seattle players made it a point to use “we” a lot in their interviews and the MVP used “humble” in the interviews I saw.

  8. The last few years the Doritos ads, made by amateurs, have been some of better ones. Being old enough to remember EVERY Super Bowl it should be remembered that there was a time, early in its genesis, when these blowouts were the norm. It has been the recent decades or so that they have gotten better. I have only missed one Super Bowl, the 1987 one, as I travelled to Medellin to adopt our son. Even the Avianca pilot gave updates. The Broncos got beat by the Giants in that one.

  9. frankmascagniiii:

    Peyton and the rest of the Mannings are class acts. I, too, feel for Peyton though I wanted Seattle to win but I have more sympathy for his brother, Cooper Manning, who always wanted to be a football star but had his college career cut short by injury.

    There is a wonderful documentary out concerning the father, Archie Manning, and how he and Peyton’s mother, Olivia Manning, raised such fine sons. I commend to everyone — football fan and non-fan alike.

    The Book of Manning:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChzLt_9llhc

    With that family, Peyton will be just fine and is a shoo in for the Hall of Fame. He understands Rudyard Kipling:

    “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same:.”

  11. anon posted:

    if you ask me, those 2 sentiments are not mutually exclusive. They come from the same sort of mindset.

  14. RWL:

    that was my thought, I figured they made a team bet, pooled their money and threw the game. They should have worked a little harder though as they were favored by 3 points werent they? I guess they wanted to ensure a good point spread.

    I turned to Downton Abbey after the kick-off in the 3rd quarter.

    I think Manning has some sort of problem with his arm, even with his yardage and completion stats for the game.

    1. Bron,

      How much do the Broncos stand to lose (either financially or chance to be a good/decent team next year) if they win the Superbowl, and then, Manning retires? Who would come to a Bronco game with a rookie QB, and probably no chance of making the playoffs in the next several years?

  15. I have to agree that last night was a waste. When the Broncos gave up 2points at the beginning, I knew it was going to be a long night for them. I did like the Bud commercials, and they usually seem to rise to the occasion unlike the Broncos.

  16. There was one absolutely great standout ad….the Coke a cola ad “America is beautiful” sung in the diversity of languages that represents what America is supposedly all about. within seconds its airing, the rightwing twittersphere exploded, condemning Coke as demeaning both America and “their” song and calling for a boycott of what is perhaps the premier all American product in every corner and culture of the world.

    The ad reflected the truth and beauty that is the American Dream, something the right wing, willingly ignorant and often racist nutcases just cannot quite grasp.

    If you Google “Coke, America is Beautiful”, you will find a detailed set of videos of the making of that wonderful ad and the interviews of those young proud Americans, including American Indian Americans and Indian Indian Americans, Arabic Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Americans and yes even a brilliant and all white European American.

    As far as I am concerned, Coke, as it has in the past, should get the award for best ad in terms of both technical merit and impact of message. America and its people are truly beautiful, except maybe for the conservatives among us who hate the rest of us.

  18. And when I say that, I’m only talking about Scientology…. I’m very happy that Seattle destroyed Denver… My Brother lives in Denver, we have an intense rivalry…. when we talked last friday, and I told him I wanted Seattle to win he was very upset! Why? he asked me…. “Because I don’t like Peyton Manning”… I’m a Giants fan, I like Eli…. “Well, don’t you want to support your brother?” he says….. “sure” I say, “I do support my brother, but I don’t have to support my brother’s team”…. I think, it looked like, to me, that the Broncos ‘partook of the weed’ before the game last night……….. they were never even in the game…. When the ball flew past Peyton’s head on the first play, that set the tempo for the entire game…. Kinda made my Mango Margharitas taste even better………… ;-D

  20. The yogurt commercial with that big black bear was okay. That was one big butt bear. My Denver choice was stomped into the ground. It took me moments to recover emotionally. It’s all NCAA Hoops from here to April.

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